Much ground to cover

While mutual funds have gained assets and popularity, the industry still needs to work hard. Fortunately, the SIP numbers have been quite encouraging.

The headline growth numbers posted by the mutual fund industry in the last 20 years paint a positive picture. From around ₹78,000 crore in 2002, the assets under management have grown to a touching distance of ₹40 lakh crore today, which translates to compounding at an average annual rate of an impressive 20 per cent. In fact, the largest mutual scheme (SBI Nifty 50 ETF) alone is almost double the 2002 industry size!

Zoom in on the equity segment and the numbers become more emphatic. The total assets managed by equity funds in 2002 were just a shade over ₹10,000 crore. Today, there are as many as 43 schemes that are individually bigger than that in size.

While, of course, the strong tailwinds provided by the equity market returns have contributed to the growth in assets under management in a big way, the net inflows over this while also show a healthy trend. Though there is a high degree of variability in the funds mobilised year on year, the long-term trend is positively inclined, particularly in the last decade.